


To Stand Like A Flag

by voxmyriad



Series: Sansûkh: The Appendices [6]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gift Fic, I Tried, and Eowyn also deserves to be happy, and Sansukh is the best of things, bastardized Khuzdul probably, because I needed Frerin to be happy, sansukh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 11:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1776712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxmyriad/pseuds/voxmyriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frerin has found his One, two centuries after his death, but by the grace of Mahal (after a great deal of pestering), he has one chance to tell the White Lady of Rohan that she holds his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Stand Like A Flag

**Author's Note:**

  * For [determamfidd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/determamfidd/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sansûkh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/855528) by [determamfidd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/determamfidd/pseuds/determamfidd). 



> So, like everyone else, I'm basically in love with Sansûkh, and one of the bits I loved best was Frerin suddenly smitten by Éowyn. I was sad forever that they'd never get to be together, and then this happened. I did my best with the Khuzdul, forgive me if something went horribly wrong. This is 100% bittersweet fluff.

It had taken wrangling—quite a lot of wrangling, if Frerin was any judge—but when Fíli had come up to him with that beaming grin, he'd followed without any questions.

Well, no, that was a lie. There had been dozens of questions, all fended off with far too much cheer for Frerin's tastes, but he'd been too distracted by finding new ways to ask the same things to realize where they were going until Fíli stopped at the door to their Maker's forge. Nothing else quite made Frerin feel his forty-eight years like standing in front of that massive anvil, but stand he did, urged inside by his nephew's reassurances.

"Ah, little prince," and the voice rolled over him like a distant thunderstorm, but it didn't stop him from straightening with a small frown.

"Does everyone need to point that out?" he said under his breath, and his Maker's laugh had a sigh folded into it.

"Young, then," Mahal offered. "Young you are, Frerin Thráinul, young you were when you came to my Halls and young you remain in form, if not in mind."

Frerin remembered his argument with Thorin in the baths of Rohan and his insistence that he was old enough to stay. Of course Mahal would have heard it, but it was embarrassing to have had witnesses to that small, ultimately fruitless display of defiance. "P'raps not," he said. "I have watched, a lot. I've seen a lot, in Ered Luin and then in Erebor. I've watched a lot of things I shouldn't've at forty-eight." _But I wasn't forty-eight when I watched them_ , he thought with a spurt of his old anger.

"And for the first time you have seen something—or I shall say instead, you have seen some _one_ upon whom your eyes now linger."

Frerin, still lost in private fuming at Thorin for sending him away like a child, was brought up entirely short as a vision of the White Lady of Rohan shimmered atop Mahal's great anvil for a moment, and vanished as he let out an involuntary sigh. "So indeed," Mahal mused, "your nephew speaks truly. I did not doubt him, but I would have seen your devotion for myself."

"D-devotion?" Frerin stuttered in his shock. His Maker had called him here over _Éowyn?_ "I, er, but she—"

"You have found your One," Mahal said directly, the heavy hand he placed on Frerin's head weighed with sorrow. "You have found her too late for your life's bliss. I am sorry, my son. I would have spared you this."

"Spared—no!" Frerin dared to duck out from beneath Mahal's hand and stood as straight as he could, the silhouette and bearing of his Durin ancestry plain to see in every line of him. "I'm dead, I know I'm dead, I've been dead long enough to have come to peace with that," he said clearly. "And maybe I did find my One, and maybe she is a shieldmaiden of Rohan, the most beautiful shieldmaiden Rohan ever had and beyond my reach forever, but I won't wish to have been _spared_ her! That isn't _fair._ " With an effort, he refrained from stomping a booted foot against the brushed flagstones; it would not aid his claim that he was older in mind than forty-eight.

Mahal's laughter was gentle, though still carried with it the force of a rolling torrent of loosened rocks down the side of a mountain. "Peace, prince, peace. I do not mean to take your One from you," he said as his teeth gleamed in a smile, out of the dimness. "In fact, your nephew wishes me to give you something near-impossible. In all my years, among all my children, these sons of Víli have proven the true persistence of Dwarrows," he added in a mutter and Frerin grinned despite himself.

"Kíli still on about bringing Mr. Baggins here when he's at his life's end?"

"And will be so until the remaking of Arda, I have no doubt. But that is my burden to bear, and truth be told…" That smile flashed in the darkness again, brimming with affection and pride. "The steadfastness of his purpose brings me great delight. A delight which, I trust, will not be passed on to him."

Frerin made a key-locking motion against his lips, still grinning widely. _Well done, Kíli,_ he thought, feeling a burgeoning pride of his own in his younger-older nephew.

Mahal made a _brrm_ sound oddly reminiscent of Treebeard before he continued, "But be that as it may, I have a different path for you." Now he sounded sterner, and Frerin stood straight without thinking. "Not lightly is this done, nor can it be done more than once, and count yourself fortunate, my son, that your One has always had such vivid and prophetic dreams, else it could not be done at all."

"Dreams?" echoed Frerin, brows furrowed.

"She walks, and has done since her girlhood, through her dreams as though they were a true place, and has found her way before now to the Olórë Mallë. Irmo Master of Dreams knows well Éowyn daughter of Théodwyn." Mahal fell silent and Frerin did _not_ squirm beneath the weight of his speculative gaze. "At the behest of your fervent nephew Fíli—he tells me you are his 'little uncle'—I have spoken with him. It is possible, once only, that in her dream-walking, she might encounter the spirit of a Dwarrow prince long dead."

Frerin's eyes widened and his intake of breath was sharp in the quiet of the forge, but Mahal continued before he could speak.

"But she will wake, moreover, with no more memory of this chance encounter than any other dream which pales and melts in the waking," he warned. "She will not know you, nor will she see you as other than a dream."

"I would speak with her," Frerin blurted, then struggled to get hold of himself and continue more calmly. It was a losing battle. "Even if only once, I would speak to her, and have her look at me, and see—"

See what? A spirit, a half-grown Dwarf barely even with her waist?

 _Yes,_ Frerin thought fiercely, _even if only that._ "I would speak with her," he repeated, and Mahal nodded once.

"It will be done. I pray it will not fall short, nor cause you greater pain."

* * *

  
The starlight released Frerin into the living world, alone and unaccompanied. The exhausted silence of the Meduseld was broken by the broken-saw snores of his cousin and Frerin smiled at the familiar sound. His Lady—Éowyn, he corrected himself with a brief stab, for she was not _his_ Lady at all, nor would she ever be—was not to be found in this outer room, among the curled, slumbering companions.

An unexpectedly loud footstep caught his attention and he watched as Aragorn moved among them to the door of the hall. Frerin slipped in behind him and beheld Éowyn upon a settee near the ashed-over fire. She was tucked tight against the chill of the night air and, no one of his kin around to cluck at him, Frerin allowed himself a small, frustrated groan.

"I wish I could warm you," he said, drifting to stand behind the settee, barely noticing as Aragorn picked a log from the fire and sparked it back into life, but his fingers tightened and passed through the plush fabric as Aragorn moved to adjust the furs that wrapped Éowyn's slender form.

She stirred, brought half-awake out of her dreams, and for a moment Frerin dreaded the waking, fearing she would find herself too alert to return to sleep. "What time is it," she murmured as Aragorn tucked the white fur against her shoulder.

"Not yet dawn," Aragorn whispered, smoothing the ruffled fur. Frerin's nails nearly bit crescents into his palm.

"Go away," he said crossly, then went silent and wide-eyed as Éowyn reached out and caught his hand, her eyes blinking open and staring into nothing. "Amab bûzunal," he whispered, reaching out a hand and sighing as it passed through her shoulder.

"I dreamed I saw a great wave," she whispered, "climbing over green lands and above the hills." Her breaths came short as she relived the dream in her mind. "I stood upon the break. It was utterly dark in the abyss before my feet." Concerned, Aragorn sat again beside her, and Frerin fairly ached to be the one to hold that hand.

"Mahal save me, you were not wrong when you spoke of pain," he said in a small voice, to no one.

Éowyn continued, looking up in bewilderment, edges of fear in her voice that should not have been there. "The light shone behind me, but I could not turn. I could only stand there, waiting," she whispered, a tear falling unheeded upon her cheek. Though he knew it would do nothing, Frerin reached out as if to smooth it away, passing his finger through the trembling drop, watching as it faded into the cloth beneath her head.

"Night changes many thoughts," Aragorn said, soft and steady. "Sleep, Éowyn. Sleep," and her breathing slowed as her eyes closed, as if his very voice was a spell. Frerin watched as Éowyn tucked Aragorn's hand beneath her cheek, watched as Aragorn gently freed it from her grip. "While you can," he added, resting a hand atop hers for a moment before pushing to his feet and striding from the hall into the frigid air to join the Elf.

As commanded, Éowyn slept, and then she opened her eyes again, but as she sat up, Frerin could see she moved in the slow undersea way of one waking within a dream. He swallowed back a twisting stab of nervousness—what would she see? _Would_ she see him? Would there be a bewildered light in her eyes when she looked upon him? Would she be pleased?—and softly cleared his throat.

When she looked upon him, truly upon _him_ for the first time, he forgot every word he'd ever learned of Westron and could only gape and hide behind his blush.

She peered at him as if trying to place him in her memory, then smiled. "I do not think I know you," she said, and her words broke the chains binding him into silence.

"You do not, but I know you," he said, trying in vain to hold back the longing in his voice. "I have watched you since my kinsman came to Edoras, and now I am given leave to speak with you, once only, by the grace of my Maker and my Maker's great kin, and I-I find I cannot." His fingers fretted at a loose thread on the settee before it dawned upon him that he was touching it, he was _touching_ something in the living world, somehow joined to it more strongly in this dream of Éowyn's than he had been in all the years since his death. His fingers bit into the cushion wonderingly and for a moment he almost forgot his true purpose.

"You cannot?" Éowyn's voice drew his eyes back to her curious, lovely face. "But you are speaking with me, are you not, master Dwarf?"

"Frerin," he said automatically, then dropped his hands from tugging at the cushion and gave her a proper greeting. "Frerin Thráinul, of the line of Durin, at your service, Milady."

"Frerin," she repeated, sitting up and turning to face him. He noted that the blankets above her did not stir. "You come to visit me for a purpose, then."

"I do." Formality over and done with, his fingers twisted into each other in front of him, and he felt ancient and young all at once. "A selfish purpose. And one which, I'm told, you won't remember when you wake."

Unexpectedly, her laughter lit the hall. "Then why do you fear so?" she asked, reaching out to rest a white hand on his fidgeting fingers. He went still, then almost shyly opened his two hands to let hers rest upon his palms. They were small, as everything was, but they were solid Durin hands for all that, thick-fingered and strong, calloused now from his work in the Halls of Mahal as they never had been in life. Her hand sat upon them like a perching dove that could take flight at any moment; he dared not move them.

"All must fear when their heart grows so large," he whispered, casting down his eyes. "It's true you wouldn't know much of Dwarrows and our ways, but you're not going to remember, and there's no one here to chide me for giving away secrets, so I may as well tell you. Mahal made us to have a destined love, our One, and it's usually a Dwarrow but not always, apparently, and I never found mine in life, died too young, but—"

Éowyn's hands folded around his. "Peace, my friend, peace," she said, smiling. "You speak as though one of us will be stolen."

"Never know," he said helplessly, looking up at her again. "You might wake up. You'll never see me again when you do, I'm told."

"'Never' is too large a word to hold fast," she said and squeezed his hands reassuringly. "Now, what is it you must say so quickly?"

Frerin stared, drinking himself nearly drunk on the kindness in her eyes. He'd seen glimpses of it, when she'd cared for the children, when she'd been a leader to her people, but now it surrounded him and he would willingly die again in it. Daring to move again, daring anything in his gifted chance to truly be present in this dream-world, he lifted his hands and dusted her knuckles with the lightest kiss. "It's you," he said. "You're my One. Two hundred and twenty years late," he added with a wry smile.

Her brow furrowed, but she didn't move back when he reached up and brushed his fingers against the wrinkles there. "How can that be?"

"Dunno how it works," Frerin said absently, now occupied with wrapping a lock of cornsilk hair around his finger. "It just _is._ I knew it when I saw you standing out on the stones, standing there like a flag, Ori said, and he was right." He felt light, weightless, hardly able to tell if his boots still touched the floor, hardly caring.

Her huffed laugh caught his attention. "Two hundred and twenty years? You cannot be of such great age," she said as her eyes skimmed over his face, still youthful even to a non-Dwarrow.

"Greater age than that," he said, pulling his hands back. "I died at Azanulbizar. I was forty-eight. Er, er, not entirely sure what that is in your years." He heaved a sigh and sat on the settee, feet dangling above the flagstones. "Too young," he added, hating the bitterness, unable to avoid it. "Too young, and too old for you if I'd lived. Two hundred and sixty-eight, I'd be, and a prince of Erebor—"

"Frerin. Peace, my friend." Her fingers settled over his as they gripped the silky furs. "Do not lose yourself in dark memory, if you have as little time as you say."

He stared down at her hand, then turned his and laced their fingers. "I wish I could help you," he said. "I don't know why you can't fight. I've seen you, you're a great fighter, you _should_ be fighting! It's unfair that you're made to do this, to stay behind!"

Her laughter surrounded him again and he leaned into it, feeling the tension of his memories uncoiling and releasing him. "Would that you could fight with me," she said, smiling down at him. "I see your ferocity would be a match for any Orc army."

"I would lay down my life again for you," he said honestly, gazing up with an entirely rapturous expression. He was sure he looked sappy enough to be mocked about it for decades, but her hand was warm and delicate and strong and calloused from her sword-work and he didn't care.

Éowyn leaned over to rest her chin atop his head. "The greatest gift one could give," she said, "and I am honored by it, but I would rather keep you by my side than see you lost a second time, Frerin."

They sat there in silence as the dawn slowly rinsed away the shadowy night. Frerin kept his eyes closed, wrapped about by the soft scent, the warmth and gentleness of her. _I will remember,_ he thought fiercely. _I will remember for us both, even if you will not, my nârinh Kharub-bâhinh, my Lady, my One._

As the rays of the sun came silently to rest upon the high ceiling, Frerin came to with a start. How much time left? It was nearly over. He hopped up, clutched at her hand. Like this, with her seated upon the low settee, they were nearly equal in height. "Fight," he said, pressing the back of her hand against his bearded cheek. "Nârinh Kharub-bâhinh, Éowyn, my Lady, my One, _fight._ " She looked startled but she did not pull back or speak, and he continued, low and earnest, "You will find a way, I know you will. I trust you. I will see you ride out."

"You are no dream-creation," she said slowly, reaching out with her other hand to rest her palm against his cheek. "I know no words like these in waking, to hear them in a dream."

He leaned into it but forced his eyes to stay open, to stay fixed upon her. "I am Frerin son of Thráin," he said, and though he knew his Dark name would mean nothing to her, he whispered, "I am Abkundûrzud, the Dawning Sun, and you hold my heart as you hold my Dark name. I will watch you always, my Sanlavaminh, my perfect white lady."

Then, reckless as the beams of the sun traveled slowly down, ticking away his time with her, he leaned forward and kissed her, and nearly melted away when he felt her lips move to join more firmly with his. Her hair he twined once more about his fingers, and when they pulled back—after seconds, after centuries—he pressed his forehead to hers, empty of words.

"Frerin," his name came to him as if far away, "Frerin," his fingers were twined through nothing now, "Frerin," she whispered in her sleep as her eyes blinked open in the new light of day.

Frerin knelt beside the settee, gazing at her, watching her eyes skate over him without seeing. He kissed his fingertips and pressed them to her cheek, with no surprise when they did not touch but passed through. He pushed himself to his feet as she sat up, frowning. "I have lost something this night," she murmured, fingers touching her forehead, her lips, a fist pressing against her heart. The sunlight skated now across the floor and she turned her head into the warmth. "The dawning sun," she said quietly, and did not know why she smiled.

"Sanlavaminh," Frerin greeted her back, and he turned against the pressure of his heart, both fuller and emptier now, and swam into the starlight of Gimlîn-zâram.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Khuzdul**  
>  Nârinh - Champion-lady  
> Abkundûrzud - Dawning Sun  
> Kharub-bâhinh - Horse Friend-lady (translation of Éowyn ~~maybe~~ )  
> Amab buzunâl - dream walker  
> Sanlavaminh - (Perfect) White-lady
> 
> Irmo - Also called Lórien, though that is more properly the name of his domain, Irmo is the Vala of Dreams, and the brother of Namo, who guards the dead in the Halls of Mandos.
> 
> Olórë Mallë - The Path of Dreams. Irmo crafted a pathway connecting Middle-earth and Valinor through dreams. When they sleep, the Eldar are guided along the pathway by Irmo to the Gardens of Lórien in Aman to rest and be refreshed, hence the reason Legolas is seen sleeping but still aware of his surroundings. Mortals can sometimes stumble upon the Path of Dreams and are granted visions of Lórien that they will forget upon waking.
> 
> Dialogue between Aragorn and Éowyn taken from the scene Éowyn's Dream in Jackson's Return of the King.
> 
> All thanks to determamfidd for being the best writer of the best fic (which helped me break through my writer's block!)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Ghostly Affairs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801866) by [Setari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setari/pseuds/Setari)




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